About

RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

Hundreds of people had converged on the mine from communities scattered across the region. Some had walked for several days to reach the site. Once there, they say, they were attacked by the mine’s security guards and by contingents of the Peruvian federal police firing teargas.

Two protesters were shot in their legs, one man lost an eye to gunshot wounds and a farmer called Melanio Garcia, 41, suffered a fatal gunshot. Photographs allegedly taken by a Monterrico supervisor, which the protesters say support their allegations of abuse by the police, show Garcia lying on the ground, apparently alive but badly injured. Several other pictures taken 30 hours later, according to their time and date stamps, clearly show Garcia to be dead.

The protesters – who have launched a multimillion-pound claim for damages at the high court in London – claim Garcia was left to bleed to death at the mine site. Monterrico says Garcia was shot some distance from the mine and it vigorously denies that any of its officers or employees were in any way involved with the alleged abuses at Rio Blanco.

Richard Meeran, of Leigh Day, the London law firm bringing the high court case, said the evidence of torture was incontrovertible and that it was inconceivable the company could have been unaware of what was happening on its site.

One of the former mine employees said in his statement that before the protest began the manager of the mine’s security force gave orders to the police “pointing out strategic points of the operation on a map, for instance, geographical points, the rotation of the police personnel and the dangers they could encounter in each area. He also explained that they had to report every 10 to 15 minutes via the Motorola radio to the management of the mining company.”

When the protesters arrived, he added: “The police shot teargas immediately. I saw the community members who wanted to talk but this was immediately denied and they were teargassed. After this clash the community members, who were about 500 or 600, retreated and stopped at about 15 metres from the police. It could be observed that among the protesters there were some children, young ladies, and elderly people. The community members raised the national flag, and sang the national anthem.”

Saddam Hussein banned unions for public workers in 1987 because he feared a progressive movement would topple his dictatorship. When the U.S occupation of Iraq began, the U.S authorities refused to repeal that law. Instead in September of 2003, Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official overseeing the Iraqi occupation, issued an order to privatize the country’s state owned industries, which include its oil industry.

The GUOWT issued a statement on the 2 August and again on the 7 August deploring the approach taken by the Oil Minister and called on him to withdraw the memo sent and signed by his legal adviser Mr Laith abd al Hussein, on 18 July 2007 under his personal instruction to the Iraqi oil companies in Baghdad, Bejy, Kirkuk and Basra ordering them not to deal with oil unions members, and instructed them not to allow oil unions members to be part of any committee formed at the work place. The Oil Minister refused to meet the leadership of the GUOWT and sent the General Director of Information Bureau of the Oil Ministry to inform the oil workers delegation that the Oil Minister will not meet with people that represent unions in the oil sector for he said that there are no workers here but state employees. In this he is wittingly or unwittingly relying on Saddam’s decree of 150 that banned workers from organizing in the public sector.

Hassan Juma’a Awad Southern Oil Company Union– The next government should not only ensure the security of the Iraqi people, but also oppose the privatization of industry. We oppose privatization very strongly, especially in the oil industry. It is our industry. We don’t want a new colonization under the guise of privatization, with international companies taking control of the oil. The day will come when the occupation forces leave. The US timetable foresees the formation of an Iraqi government after the elections. The US should then leave, but I don’t have faith that they will leave so easily. We should all come together to resist the occupation.

FALEH ABOOD UMARA: [translated] According to Article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution, which states that the oil and gas of Iraq are owned by the Iraqi people and they have the right to control it. But when you look into the details of the law, many of the articles of the law actually conflict with this preamble of the law, the most important point of which is the issue of the production-sharing agreements, which allows the international oil companies, especially the American ones, to exploit the oil fields without our knowledge of what they are actually doing with it. And they take about 50% of the production as their share, which we think it’s an obvious robbery of the Iraqi oil.

This week-

The Iraqi government is expected to pay up to $2.5 billion to five top oil companies to increase the country’s oil output by nearly a quarter, a government adviser has admitted. In what would be the biggest foreign involvement for decades, Baghdad is close to signing technical support contracts with BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Total.

Shell is negotiating for the northern Kirkuk oilfield and is also in talks, along with BHP Billiton, for the development of the Maysan fields. BP also has its eyes on Iraq’s southern Rumaila field, while Exxon wants the contract for the Zubair oilfield in Basra. Finally, Chevron and Total are looking to work together to develop the West Qurna oilfield.

Iraq’s Oil Ministry said Sunday that it has invited local and international oil companies to bid for contracts including one to develop a natural gas field in a Sunni area in the west of the country…Early this year, the ministry said it was negotiating with Royal Dutch Shell PLC to conduct output tests for the field which has five wells that are ready to be interconnected…In a separate tender, the ministry has also invited companies to submit detailed engineering study and procurement of equipment and materials of two oil pipelines linking the Basra oil fields in southern Iraq with Iran’s Abadan refinery.

Today at least 54 Iraqis were killed and the green zone is under attack, but we are not invited by the corporate coverage to include the context of the oil & gas resources being sold off, the anti union policies of Saddam being reinforced by the occupiers or the wholesale privatisation of Iraq. Nor in the simpleton greenwash media landscape is Iraq perceived for the environmental disaster, no, buy a cotton shopping bag & an eco bulb (of course all the solutions they offer always depend on you buying something), nevermind about the war-

Projected total US spending on the Iraq war could cover all of the global investments in renewable power generation that are needed between now and 2030 in order to halt current warming trends.

The war is responsible for at least 141 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) since March 2003. To put this in perspective, CO2 released by the war to date equals the emissions from putting 25 million more cars on the road in the US this year.

In 2006, the US spent more on the war in Iraq than the whole world spent on investment in renewable energy.

…if the war was ranked as a country in terms of annual emissions, it would emit more CO2 each year than 139 of the world’s nations do. Falling between New Zealand and Cuba, the war each year emits more than 60% of all countries on the planet.

Military emissions abroad are not captured in the national greenhouse gas inventories that all industrialized nations, including the United States, report under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It’s a loophole big enough to drive a tank through.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) is the largest oil consuming government body in the US and in the world… in Fiscal Year 2004, the US military fuel consumption increased to 144 million barrels. This is about 40 million barrels more than the average peacetime military usage. By the way, 144 million barrels makes 395 000 barrels per day, almost as much as daily energy consumption of Greece.
The US military is the biggest purchaser of oil in the world.

May ’05 “The Third Army (of General Patton) had about 400,000 men and used about 400,000 gallons of gasoline a day. Today the Pentagon has about a third that number of troops in Iraq yet they use more than four times as much fuel.”

Some figures show that the U.S. military uses enough oil in one year to run all of the U.S. transit systems for the next 14-22 years. In less than one hour a U.S. F-16 fighter jet uses twice as much fuel as the average U.S. auto driver. One-quarter of the world’s jet fuel is consumed by the world’s military. And worldwide the military consumption of copper, nickel, aluminum and platinum exceeds that of the Free World.

Your friendly (every) neighbourhood Tesco supermarket hates you, when you need the police, or a hospital, or safe roads, or schools they most assuredly wish to deny them by not paying their way. Good job they come across so friendly in their teevee adverts, because really they just want your money and then for you to fuck off and die (and their custard slices taste like shit).

Tesco has created an elaborate corporate structure involving offshore tax havens which enables it to avoid paying what could be up to £1bn of tax on profits from the sale of its UK properties.

The complex new structures uncovered by a six-month Guardian investigation include a string of Cayman Island companies, each named after a different colour, from aqua to violet. These are being used by the supermarket giant as it proceeds with its announced programme to sell and lease back £6bn worth of its UK stores.

The Guardian’s analysis of Tesco’s accounts over the past five years also shows that the company has paid an effective tax rate of just over 20% on the rest of its profits, at a time when the UK corporation tax rate is 30%.

· New company structures set up by Tesco to own stores that are being sold and leased back mean that 99.9% of the company that owns the stores could end up being held offshore. Tesco would be liable to pay UK tax on only the 0.1% of its profit on the sale of the stores held in the UK. Tesco’s first two property deals, worth about £1bn, have used this structure and will avoid tax on £500m of profits.

· Although its accounts for the past five years report an average rate of corporation tax of 29%, the actual rate of tax Tesco paid, according to its cash flow statement, is closer to 20%. This is on profits separate from the property deals. UK corporation tax is 30%.

· Tesco has sold its 37 stores in the first two sale and leaseback deals at twice the book value that is included in its accounts, making a profit of about £500m on the £1bn of stores sold. If it achieves the same rate of return on all its disposals as expected, its share of profits from property sales would come to about £3bn. The UK corporation tax due on this would be as high as £1bn, but the retailer could avoid paying this because of its offshore structure.

· A string of other company structures leading to the Cayman Islands have been set up and more of Tesco’s properties have already been transferred to them so that they could be quickly activated for the next tranche of store sales.

So weirdly if you went shoplifting in one of their stores and absolutely crammed your coat with stuff you’d still be nothing like the thief that the shop around you is. Not that I’m suggesting you go shoplifting in Tescos, after all why mix with such lowlife corporate crooks?

“If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we’re going to harm you,” Chavez said. “Do you know how? We aren’t going to send oil to the United States. Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger.”

Exxon Mobil has gone after the assets of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA in U.S., British and Dutch courts as it challenges the nationalization of a multibillion dollar oil project by Chavez’s government.

A British court has issued an injunction “freezing” as much as $12 billion in assets.

“I speak to the U.S. empire, because that’s the master: continue and you will see that we won’t sent one drop of oil to the empire of the United States,” Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, “Hello, President.”

“The outlaws of Exxon Mobil will never again rob us,” Chavez said, accusing the Irving, Texas-based oil company of acting in concert with Washington.

Chavez has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil shipments to the United States, which is Venezuela’s No. 1 client, if Washington tries to oust him. Chavez’s warnings on Sunday appeared to extend that threat to attempts by oil companies to challenge his government’s nationalization drive in courts internationally.

“If the economic war continues against Venezuela, the price of oil is going to reach $200 (a barrel) and Venezuela will join the economic war,” Chavez said. “And more than one country is willing to accompany us in the economic war.”

This neatly reveals the political totalitarianism of the corporatocracy, people who work for corporations will often not think that what they do is any more than their job/career. When they vote, that’s politics, but not what they do for many hours every weekday. Thus reinforcing the false assumption that the current global capitalism is some kind of common-sensical natural order and democracy is really just choosing different management styles. As if something you do once every few years for a few minutes is somehow more powerful than that which you do for thousands of days between each election. Thus the scam of pretending capitalism=democracy thrives.
But here a political and economic war is taking place where a global corporation closely allied to national governments and military power is attacking a sovereign nation. Support Hamas and you will be called a terrorist, but work for Exxon? Well that’s just a job, innit?

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities charged on Saturday 13 ultra-nationalists, including retired army officers, with involvement in plans for a violent uprising against the government, Turkish media said.

The court decision followed the arrests of dozens of people this week in a police investigation into a far-right group known as Ergenekon. Turkish media say the group had been plotting a series of bomb attacks and assassinations.

Retired brigadier general Veli Kucuk, retired major Zekeriya Ozturk and lawyer Kemal Kerencsiz were among those facing charges of inciting people to armed revolt, private broadcaster CNN Turk said.

Kerencsiz is well known in Turkey for prosecuting writers and journalists, including Nobel Literature Laureate Orhan Pamuk, under article 301 of the country’s penal code that makes it a crime to insult “Turkishness”.

Officials have declined to comment on the Ergenekon case, which began with the seizure of explosives and weapons at a house in Umraniye, Istanbul, last summer.

Turkish newspapers said this week the group had been planning to kill Pamuk, author of novels such as “Snow” and “My Name is Red”, as well as several Kurdish politicians.

The newspapers also said the group was preparing a series of bomb attacks aimed at fomenting chaos ahead of a coup in 2009 against Turkey’s centre-right government, whose European Union-linked reforms are opposed by the ultra-nationalists.

The Ergenekon group may have been behind the murder last January of Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish Armenian journalist, outside his office in Istanbul, newspapers have quoted police sources as saying.

Some commentators have seen in the Ergenekon case the workings of a “deep state”, a phrase used to denote ultra-nationalists in the security forces and state bureaucracy who are ready to subvert the law for their own political ends.

Police have been observing Ergenekon, which is named after a valley in Turkish nationalist mythology, for several years and have compiled a 7,000-page dossier on the group and its activities, newspapers say.

But please ladies & gentlemen notice how these ‘ultra-nationalists’ do not get tarred with the ‘terrorist’ brush and the case is not exactly headline news. Interestingly one Turkish site says-

Turkey determined to purge its Gladio: The prime minister has said a police inquiry resulting in the arrest of dozens of people, including ex-army officers and lawyers, shows the determination of Turkey to bring an end to state and military-linked gangs.

No wonder this is not a big item, the right are always excused their terrorism as a matter of European policy, instead it is called extremism. Gladio and the left behind program where America and Britain funded Nazis & right wing nationalists to perpetrate terror attacks to be blamed on the left is still a much denied open secret, yet the evidence abounds of state sponsored terrorism, except they are our states doing the false flag sponsoring. Thus the mainstream press is extremely reluctant to broach the subject, for example this from the Independent recently headlined How Britain plotted coup d’état to topple Italy’s Communists yet no mention of Gladio at all in the article, an oblique reference to Kissinger is as far as the writer will go (ooh that connects Gladio, Turkey, Pakistan, BCCI etc etc Sibel Edmonds and nuclear proliferation! Oh my, lions and tigers and bears! The tales ‘enry could tell). A sort of insider tip, if you know the history the story ads something to it, if you don’t it is unlikely this will enlighten you much. Gladio is also important because neo-cons who helped lie us into Iraq and are doing the same with Iran were cutting their teeth in these programs, (hello Michael ‘yellow cake‘ Ledeen). And now another state within the state of right wing terrorists is revealed in Turkey, ostensibly because Turkey wants to play nice with the EU, but what is for sure is yet again the story is not going to lead to a full revelation of the extent of right wing terrorism in Europe and governments involvement in it. Which reminds me, can you imagine you had a story that connected the British government, with terrorists and a multi-million narcotics kingpin, imagine the splash that would make, yeah ok you see where this is going, a handful of reports on local Northern Irish news, otherwise silence.

An ex-RUC reservist who had 40 properties worth about £5m confiscated by the Assets Recovery Agency has said he is happy with what he kept. In an out of court settlement, Colin Armstrong, 40, from Tullynewbank Road, Glenavy, retains four properties, including a house in France.

It’s hilarious, out of court and he keeps a King’s ransom anyway-

…retains four properties, including a house in France…He also keeps a motorbike, cars, including a Porsche, and bank accounts… The Assets Recovery Agency has agreed to pay Mr Armstrong’s legal costs which amount to £175,000.

Hmmm, buying silence perchance? No one wants to get into loyalist collusion with the government’s security forces especially where drugs are concerned. No, only the bad guys on the other side do that. Meanwhile the government expects us to trust it with a 4 week -and if they get their way 6 week- detention without charge or evidence in ‘terrorist’ cases. Oh yeah, nothing to worry about there. Go back to sleep, everything’s fine…

Update:Part 3 of Sibel Edmonds Times interview and analysis without fear of UK libel (ie. “State Department official” come on down Marc Grossman!). Still a corporate news blackout in the homeland. The ‘war on terror’ the biggest grift going.

A director of Colombian military intelligence and another officer implicated in a series of false attacks and a bombing that killed a civilian and injured 19 soldiers in Bogotá in 2006, attended the US Army School of the Americas, an examination of records shows.

The Colombian Public Ministry is investigating Colonel Horacio Arbelaez, former director of the Army’s Joint Intelligence Center; Major Javier Efrén Hermida Benavides; and Captain Luis Eduardo Barrero for orchestrating placement of bombs in a Bogota shopping mall and other sites in July 2006, on the eve of President Uribe’s inauguration for his second term. At the time of the bombing and false attacks, they were attributed to guerrillas of the FARC. In most cases, the bombs were not detonated, but were denounced by the accused officers and deactivated to demonstrate the FARC threat and show military intelligence was doing its work.

Hermida took two courses at the School of the Americas, including a three-month military intelligence intensive in 2000, while Arbelaez took an infantry course at the School in 1981. A statistical study by sociologist Katherine McCoy found that the more courses Latin American officers took at the School, the more likely they were to commit abuses. (Latin American Perspectives, 2005, http://lap.sagepub.com )

The officers reportedly collaborated with a FARC deserter on placing the bombs, according to tapes, videos and documents. Hermida, who claims his innocence, told a Colombian radio station that the operation at the shopping mall was carried out with knowledge of high military officials.

Hermida and Barrero also face criminal charges for the false attacks, five of which had been united into one case by the Prosecutor General’s office.

Arbelaez, who is now Colombia’s defense attaché in Israel, was previously head of intelligence for the Army’s 18th Brigade. That brigade, based in oil-rich Arauca state, has received extensive assistance and in-country training from US Special Forces.

Press reports identified Hermida and Barrero as belonging to the Army’s 13th Brigade part of which receives US assistance, as well as to a regional military intelligence center that also receives US aid.

I could try really, really hard and be surprised but…America training people to fake terror attacks to help the election of a right wing client leader, it’s all so Gladio darling! Not to mention all the labour organisers who keep turning up dead, the corporate backing of paramilitary terror gangs and the support from both main parties in America & Britain for Uribe’s terrorist regime (with some notable and brave exceptions).

Via Larisa Alexandrovna– This is important also what Larisa adds is crucial, The Times bottled out of naming names but she fills in the blanks, also worth noting not a single large media outlet in the USA would handle this, some excerpts-

Sibel Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator for the FBI, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She approached The Sunday Times last month after reading about an Al-Qaeda terrorist who had revealed his role in training some of the 9/11 hijackers while he was in Turkey.

Edmonds described how foreign intelligence agents had enlisted the support of US officials to acquire a network of moles in sensitive military and nuclear institutions.

Among the hours of covert tape recordings, she says she heard evidence that one well-known senior official in the US State Department was being paid by Turkish agents in Washington who were selling the information on to black market buyers, including Pakistan.

The Times won’t name him, Larisa does- Marc Grossman United States Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2001 to 2005.

She claims that the FBI was also gathering evidence against senior Pentagon officials – including household names – who were aiding foreign agents.

“If you made public all the information that the FBI have on this case, you will see very high-level people going through criminal trials,” she said.

The Turks and Israelis had planted “moles” in military and academic institutions which handled nuclear technology. Edmonds says there were several transactions of nuclear material every month, with the Pakistanis being among the eventual buyers. “The network appeared to be obtaining information from every nuclear agency in the United States,” she said.

They were helped, she says, by the high-ranking State Department official who provided some of their moles – mainly PhD students – with security clearance to work in sensitive nuclear research facilities. These included the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, which is responsible for the security of the US nuclear deterrent.

“The Turks, she says, often acted as a conduit for the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s spy agency, because they were less likely to attract suspicion. Venues such as the American Turkish Council in Washington were used to drop off the cash, which was picked up by the official.

Edmonds said: “I heard at least three transactions like this over a period of 2½ years. There are almost certainly more.”

The Pakistani operation was led by General Mahmoud Ahmad, then the ISI chief.”

“Intelligence analysts say that members of the ISI were close to Al-Qaeda before and after 9/11. Indeed, Ahmad was accused of sanctioning a $100,000 wire payment to Mohammed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers, immediately before the attacks.”

Of course the Times likes to play up the Al Qaeda and nationalist us/them angle but really what is being described here is the transnational nature of power, influence and wealth. And how patriotism is the sucker bet laid out for electorates to volunteer their labour for enterprises that enrich global elites. An Empire allowing favours and laying further grounds for profitable wars. Of course many insist this is a time of war (when excusing their crimes and domestic repression) which does make many actions of the people Edmonds heard treason..and punishable by death. Petard, hoist, you figure it out.

I have decided that after years of not getting anyone to publish what I have found out about the Edmonds case, I am simply going to give you folks some names. I won’t explain what the allegations are, or how these people might fit together or even if they fit together. I also don’t claim to have all the names or know the full story by any means. But I am certain, that brilliant bloggers, researchers, and journalists will finally figure it out:

And a few phrases for you folks to play around with (in no particular order):
Gray Wolves
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
RAND Corporation
PNAC
East Turkmenistan
Iran
Syria
Foreign Policy
King Faisal
ISI